David M. Shribman: Fueling a push for separatism

CALGARY ― A wildfire is sweeping the western Canadian province of Alberta. It's not the one you are thinking of.

And a Canadian province is considering leaving the country. It also isn't the one you are thinking of.

"Expect widespread cross-over conditions," a fire forecaster, characterizing weather that can make for uncontrollable fires, told the Globe and Mail newspaper this summer. The description fits Canada today, where the forest conditions of wind, rising heat and unstable air are producing a condition called "spotting," with the result that a wildfire jumps from one place to another.

Here, all three spotting conditions apply: Wind (the rhetoric of Donald Trump). Heat (resentment). Unstable air (the volatile condition of Canadian politics today).

The consequence: The firestorm of separatism, which has been part of the political environment of French-speaking Quebec since the "Quiet Revolution" of the 1960s, has spread to energy-rich Alberta, where the tinder is long-simmering bitterness over Ottawa's energy policies and the decades-long siphoning off of tax revenues to other provinces, especially Quebec.

Into this dangerous situation of violent fire whirls raced two incendiary figures, both versed in the inflammatory rhetoric of the new conservatism: Trump, already with deep resentment toward Canada and its Liberal Party leadership, and Danielle Smith, the premier of Alberta and an able arsonist in the art of political provocation.

The combination of these combustible conditions is the Oct. 19 referendum on whether to hold a future referendum on breaking away from Canada. Note the subtlety here, designed by Smith to make a bow toward the separatist element in the province without actually embracing the separatist theology.

The fact that the first referendum almost certainly won't pass, making the threat of the second one moot, isn't the point; Smith has only poured ― this metaphor is all but unavoidable, so forgive me ― fuel on the fire.

At this point, it is essential to point out that Smith is an admirer of Trump and the MAGA movement, though the American president's conflagration of indignation against Canada has doused some of her fire. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney withdrew from difficult trade negotiations, proclaiming that ― in this country the metaphors flare ― the country was at war. ("You're at war when you're attacked. We got attacked.")

All this occurs as surface conditions here shift.

Energy remains preeminent; Alberta's northern oil sands bitumen produces 4.3 million barrels of crude each day, more than four-fifths of the country's oil, according to the Canada Energy Regulator federal agency. It also has vast riches of natural gas; the province produces an enormous amount of electricity, some of which goes to Montana. And it is the site of largest solar-power installation in Canada.

Now add this: a surge in AI data centers, including a 2.9-million-square-foot site being constructed by Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.

Given that Alberta is in a virtual tie with Manitoba for having the highest provincial rate of GDP trade with the United States (39.5%), it shouldn't be a surprise that there are whiffs of MAGA affinity, if not quite visible support, for separatism here. Indeed, Smith met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago before he was inaugurated for a second term.

The Alberta Prosperity Project is seeking a $500 billion line of credit from the U.S. government to support the province in a possible transition out of Canada. Carney ― no friend to Trump and now recognized as, along with Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the political figures most overtly hostile to the American president's inferno ― warned the Trump administration in January, "We expect the U.S. administration to respect Canadian sovereignty."

Trump's 51st-state attacks on the country and his tariff policies have produced a "war" between two countries that once bragged about having the world's longest undefended border. The effect: a dramatic upswing in Canadian nationalism so powerful that the separatist Parti Quebecois pushed back its vow to hold an independence referendum if it returns to power.

In some ways, like Quebec, Alberta is a province apart from the rest of Canada. The home to grizzly and black bears, cougars, elk, lynxes and moose, it has 1,544 square miles of wild landscapes.

It's a place where there is concern about pneumonia among Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep (not a great preoccupation in Montreal); anxiety about vulnerability to the parasite that causes whirling disease among salmon (not a prominent fear in Toronto); and brooding about the ability of a single female quagga mussel to produce a million eggs a year (not a prominent cause of unease in Winnipeg).

And the spectacular landscape here ― sweeping mountains that inspired the great painter Lawren Harris, one of the country's famed Group of Seven artists ― explains why the Canadian balladeer Gordon Lightfoot, in his 1972 "Alberta Bound," was able to sing: "No one I've met could e'er forget / The Rocky Mountain sunset."

Alberta is the province with the lowest support (59%) for a special tax on electricity sold in the United States (Canada rate: 74%); the lowest support (58%) for a special tax on oil and gas sold to the U.S. (Canada: 70%); the lowest rate of support (33%) for taxing U.S. streaming sites such as Netflix (Canada: 44%); and the lowest support (33%) for taxing U.S. fruits and vegetables (Canada: 46%), according to a poll conducted by the Leger market research and analytics company.

Even so, only a small minority of Albertans support separatism, and among residents of Quebec and Alberta, half say that they would remain in their province if it became an independent country, while 28% would consider moving elsewhere in Canada.

"Instead, it's a challenge for the governments of Canada and Alberta to manage the sentiment among those who are fed up with the Canadian government," said Andrew Enns, the central Canada-based vice president of Leger. "The State Department doesn't have to worry about how it's going to respond to an independent Alberta."

Meanwhile, three indigenous bands have asked the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to investigate charging Smith with treason for risking the province's place in Canada and for violating treaties with them. Smith soon will begin marathon consultations with tribal leaders.

Their likely verdict: Treaties 6, 7 and 8 were negotiated with the British crown, not with Alberta, and thus the province has no authority to alter these late 19th-century agreements and has no legal basis to leave Canada.

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David M. Shribman is the former executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.